Milos RaonicFrank Gunn
Canadian Milos Raonic knew he'd be hard-pressed to pull off a first-round upset at the Rogers Cup.
The 19-year-old wild-card entry was a heavy underdog against Victor Hanescu, and the veteran Romanian advanced with a 6-4, 6-4 victory Monday.
Raonic, at No. 217, is well behind the world No. 54 in the ATP rankings. The Thornhill, Ont., native usually plays at lower-level Challenger or Futures events and was happy to get some experience against an elite player on the grandstand showcourt at the Rexall Centre.
Raonic was also pleased the match was competitive.
"I knew I needed to play my best to come out successful today," Raonic said. "I did play well, I felt I just came up a bit short."
Hanescu, 29, used his six-foot-six frame to full advantage in the 69-minute match. He had four aces and won 75 per cent of his service points.
Raonic said at this level, work ethic and consistency can be the difference.
"Sometimes you can get lucky in a Challenger match," Raonic said. "People do give away a match here or there.
"But here you're going to have to earn it."
Raonic had a decent run at last year's Rogers Cup in Montreal, downing two qualifiers before pushing 10th-ranked Fernando Gonzalez of Chile to a third set.
The youngster feels he's getting closer to making that jump to the top level.
"I don't think I'm that far," he said. "I think it's a few good weeks and I get my ranking up, and I can play at these matches more often."
Raonic was one of four Canadian players given wild-card entries into the ATP Masters 1000 series tournament. The others are Frank Dancevic of Niagara Falls, Ont., Pierre-Ludovic Duclos of Ste-Foy, Que., and Peter Polansky of Thornhill, Ont.
Polansky was scheduled to play his opening match on centre court Monday night against No. 13 seed Jurgen Melzer of Austria. After that, Raonic and Vasek Pospisil of Vancouver will play in the feature doubles match against Rafael Nadal of Spain and Novak Djokovic of Serbia.
In other early matches Monday, Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine defeated Richard Gasquet of France 7-5, 6-1, and Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina beat Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-1, 6-3. Tommy Robredo of Spain topped Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-1, 6-4; Kevin Anderson of South Africa downed Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 7-6 (2), 6-4, and Julian Benneteau of France beat Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-4, 6-4.
Nadal, a two-time Rogers Cup champion, is the top seed in the singles draw of the US$2.43-million tournament. The top eight seeds have been given byes into the second round.